Method and system for distributing product information

ABSTRACT

A method and system of associating product codes with product characteristics, and using those product codes to send and recieve information about those characteristics to destinations on a network.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0001] A manufacturer and dealer of the manufacturer's goods typicallywork together to ensure that the dealer has correct information aboutthe manufacturer's products. For example, when a product is updated orchanged, the manufacturer often sends the product information to thedealer. This information is frequently sent in hard copy form, with apiece of paper containing either a list of the product modifications oran entirely new product specification sheet. In response, the dealerwill typically add the new information into the dealer's own advertisingliterature.

[0002] The foregoing process is fraught with inefficiency and potentialfor errors. It is inefficient because personnel must first transcribethe new product information and then integrate it into the dealer'sadvertising literature. During the transcription process, typographicalerrors may creep into the dealer's advertising literature.

[0003] Although product information may be sent in electronic form bydisk or email to facilitate the dealer's use of the information, thatalone is not enough to cure the inefficiencies associated with theforegoing process. While it may eliminate the need to transcribe theinformation, it does not eliminate the time and expense of integratingthe information into the dealer's product literature. The inefficiencyis compounded by the fact that many dealers are all go through the sameprocess of modifying their product literature.

[0004] In addition, once the product information is electronicallyreceived by the dealers, there is no way for the manufacturer to trackwhether the information was used, and if so how often it was used andwhether it was used correctly. Without such tracking data, manufacturersare limited in their ability to provide accurate and efficient productinformation or updates to that information.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0005] The present invention addresses these needs.

[0006] In one aspect, the present invention provides a method ofproviding product information over a network. The method includesassociating product codes with the values of a characteristic,associating product codes with destinations on the network such that afirst product code is associated with a first destination and a secondproduct code is associated with a different second destination, thefirst product code and second product code further being associated withdifferent characteristics of the same product, storing the productcodes, values, destinations and associations, receiving a first requestover the network, the request including the first product code andidentifying a destination, and sending the value associated with thefirst product code to the destination if the stored associationindicates that the destination identified in the request is associatedwith the first product code.

[0007] In another aspect, the method includes receiving a request forinformation about the product from a first computer on a network, inresponse to the request, sending an information code and informationrelating to the first computer to a third computer on the network, theinformation code being associated with a characteristic of a product,receiving, in response to the sending of the information code, a valueof the characteristic associated with the information code and sendingthe value to the second computer.

[0008] In a further aspect, the method involves associating productcodes with the values of a characteristic, associating product codeswith destinations on the network such that a first product code isassociated with a first destination and a second product code isassociated with a different second destination, the first product codeand second product code further being associated with differentcharacteristics of the same product, storing the product codes, values,destinations and associations, receiving a first request over thenetwork, the request including the first product code and identifying adestination, sending the value associated with the first product code tothe destination if the stored association indicates that the destinationidentified in the request is associated with the first product code, andsending formatting information with the value.

[0009] The present invention also provides a system in communicationwith a second computer via a network, whereby the system includes: dataand instructions accessible to the computer and a processor forexecuting the instructions; the data including records linking productcodes to characteristics of products; and the instructions including thesteps of retrieving the value of a characteristic in response to arequest by the second computer for product information, the requestincluding the product code and information relating to a third computer;sending the value to the second computer for provision to the thirdcomputer; and storing tracking information linking the informationrelating to the third computer with the product code in the request.

[0010] Another system in accordance with the invention includes meansfor associating product codes with the values of a characteristic, meansfor associating product codes with destinations on the network such thata first product code is associated with a first destination and a secondproduct code is associated with a different second destination, thefirst product code and second product code further being associated withdifferent characteristics of the same product, means for storing theproduct codes, values, destinations and associations, means forreceiving a first request over the network, the request including thefirst product code and identifying a destination, and means for sendingthe value associated with the first product code to the destination ifthe stored association indicates that the destination identified in therequest is associated with the first product code.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0011]FIG. 1 is a functional diagram of a system in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

[0012]FIG. 2 is a functional diagram of a system, including datastructures and exemplary data of a dealer server and manufacturerserver, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.

[0013]FIG. 3 is a functional diagram of the data structures andexemplary data of a Product Information Database in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

[0014]FIG. 4 is an exemplary web page created in accordance with anembodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0015] As shown in FIG. 1, a system 50 in accordance with one embodimentof the invention comprises a network of computers such as end userpersonal computer 60 which communicates with web servers 70-72 viaInternet 80. Although only a few computers are depicted in FIG. 1, itshould be appreciated that a typical system can include a large numberof connected computers. Preferably, end user computer 60 is a generalpurpose computer having all the internal components normally found in apersonal computer such as, for example, central processing unit (CPU)61, display 62, CD-ROM 63, hard-drive 64, mouse 65, keyboard 66,speakers 67, microphone 68, modem 69 and all of the components used forconnecting these elements to one another. End user computer 60communicates with the Internet 60 via modem 69. End user computer 60 maycomprise any work station or system capable of processing instructionsand transmitting data to and from humans and other computers, includingPDA's with modems, Internet-capable wireless phones and Internet userterminals. Although, CPU 61 is shown as a single processor, theinstructions may actually be distributed to a number of differentcomponents or processors for execution.

[0016] Web servers 70-72, including dealer servers 70, 72 andmanufacturer server 71, contain hardware for sending and receivinginformation over the World Wide Web, such as web pages or files. The webservers 70-72 may be typical web servers or any computer network serveror other automated system capable of communicating with other computersover a network, including the Internet, wide area networks or local areanetworks. For example, the system described above in connection with enduser computer 60 may also function as a web server.

[0017] As shown in greater detail in FIG. 2, dealer server 70 contains aprocessor 75, a set of instructions 80 which are executed by processor80 and a variety of data. Preferably, the instructions 80 are stored asa program on the hard drive of the dealer server 70. The functions,methods and routines of the program are explained in more detail below.The data includes Dealer ID 76, Templates 77 and Page Data 78 and,although the data is shown separately from instructions 80, the data maybe modified by the program.

[0018] Dealer ID 76 contains data uniquely identifying a particularcollection of data stored in dealer server 70. For example, Dealer ID 76may equal the string “Dealer A” if the server is being used to manageinformation relating to the company known as “Dealer Company A, Inc.” Ifthe same server is used to store data from multiple companies, there maybe more than one Dealer ID stored in the server (and correspondinglymore than one set of Templates 77 and Page Data 78). Moreover, eventhough the data may be maintained, i.e., its value determined by, oneentity, the server itself may be operated by a different entity such asan ISP.

[0019] Page Data 78 contains, or points to, information to be displayedon a web page. Specifically, Page Data 78 may take the form of adatabase containing records having three fields, URL 79, Template ID 81and PIIC 82. URL field 79 corresponds with the particular web page. TheTemplate ID field 81 contains values which equal, or point to, one ofthe values contained in the Template ID field 85 of Template Data 77.The PIIC field 82 contains a list of the PIIC's associated with the webpage. PIIC's are product information and identity codes that refer to aparticular item of information about a product or service as explainedin more detail below.

[0020] Template Data 77 contains data describing how a particular webpage looks. For example, an on-line catalog may have a different webpage for every product, such that the pictures of the products and theirdescriptions change from page to page. However, in order to preserveconsistency within a web site, it is preferable that the different webpages have a consistent look. Thus, many of the pages may display thesame information or some types of information in the same generallocation. For example, FIG. 4 shows a web page advertising a radio. Justlike the web page shown in FIG. 4, a web page on a CD player wouldpreferably have the dealer's name centered in text at the top of thepage, followed by a picture of the CD player immediately below, followedby a description of the CD player in left-justified text.

[0021] Each template in Template Data 77 has both a Template ID 85 whichidentifies the template (such as “T1” or “T2”) and a Template Document86 containing the information to be displayed on a web page other thanthe information specific to the product. A Template Document for the webpage shown in FIG. 4 may accordingly take the following form: <html><head> <title>Dealer Company A, Inc.</title> </head> <body><center>Dealer Company A</center> <center>This product is availabletoday!</center> <MANUFACTURER INFORMATION> </body> </html>

[0022] The string “<MANUFACTURER INFORMATION>” corresponds with theinformation that changes based on the product being displayed.

[0023] Dealer server 72, if operated by a separate company, would haveits own set of data including its own Dealer ID such as “Dealer BCorporation.” The PIIC's stored in dealer server 72 may overlap with thePIIC's stored in dealer server 70.

[0024] Manufacturer server 71 includes a processor 83, a set ofinstructions 84 which are executed by processor 83 and a ProductInformation Database 300. As with the instructions 80 of dealer server70, instructions 84 are preferably stored as a program on the hard driveof the manufacturer server 71. The functions, methods and routines ofthe instruction 84 are explained in more detail below.

[0025]FIG. 3 illustrates the Product Information Database 300 in moredetail. The Product Information Database 300 has three tables, includingDealer Table 310, Product Table 320 and Dealer-Product AuthorizationTable 330. These tables represent just one way that PIIC's may beassociated with product characteristics and destinations. Dealer Table310 contains a list of records having two fields, Dealer ID 311 andDealer Address 312. The values contained in Dealer ID field 311correspond with the Dealer ID 76 values of the various dealer servers,such as Dealer Server 70. The Dealer Address field 312 contains theelectronic address of the respective dealer and, more particularly,states where product information is to be sent to the dealer. In atypical circumstance, that address is an IP Address such as a URL thatpoints to Dealer Server 70. By way of example, the record correspondingwith Dealer Company A, Inc. would have Dealer ID and Dealer Addressvalues of “Dealer A” and “DealerCompanyA.com/ResponseInfo”,respectively.

[0026] Product Table 320 contains records describing the characteristicsof a product. Each individual item of product information has a ProductInformation and Identification Code (PIIC) 321 assigned to it. Forexample, one item of information may be how the product looks. For eachPIIC, there is also a Content Item 322 associated with it. Thus, apicture of a radio may be stored in Product Table 320 by placing arecord in the table whereby the PIIC 321 is “R100-picture” and theContent Item 322 is a bit-mapped file containing a picture of the unit.The radio's specifications may be stored in Product Table 320 as arecord whereby PIIC 321 is “R100-specifications” and the Content Item322 is a text document listing the specifications. Preferably, for thereasons explained below, the data is stored in HTML format.

[0027] Not every dealer will need, or be authorized to, access everyfeature of every product stored in Product Table 320. For example, somedealers may not sell certain products and, therefore, do not need toobtain information about that product. Similarly, a dealer may not needto obtain all of the product information stored in Product Table 320even if the dealer sells that product. For example, some dealers may notsell the product directly, but rather, simply advertise the product tothe public on behalf of others. Such dealers would not need to know thewholesale price of the product. Also, a manufacturer may have atwo-tiered pricing approach to its products whereby dealers in one grouppay a different price then dealers in another group. The manufacturermay store both prices in Product Table 320, with separate PIIC's, butmay want to prevent dealers from the first group from learning theprices intended for dealers in the other group, and vice versa.

[0028] Dealer-Product Authorization Table 330 contains values indicatingwhether or not a particular dealer is entitled to obtain a particularitem of product information. If a dealer is authorized to obtain aparticular item of information about a product, then Dealer-ProductAuthorization Table 330 will contain a record specifying the dealer'sDealer ID and the item's PIIC. Otherwise, if there is no suchauthorization, then there will be no such record.

[0029] The data structures described herein, such as Page Data 78 andProduct Information Database 300, are exemplary only. Other datastructures, such as different fields and tables or completely differentmethods of storing information such as XML or the like, may also be usedinstead.

[0030] In one possible operation of the present invention, user 60requests a web page by transmitting a a request for product informationto dealer server 70 via Internet 80. Such a request may take the form ofa URL, which URL may have been provided by the user clicking on ahot-link that caused the user to jump to a page containing a picture anddescription of a product. For illustration purposes, the user shall beassumed to be interested in information about a radio offered by themanufacturer maintaining the information contained in manufacturerserver 71. The exemplary radio shall be hereafter referred to as the“R100 Radio” and the URL of the web page shall be considered to be“DealerCompanyA.com/R100/description.html”.

[0031] Upon receipt of the URL and in accordance with instructions 80,processor 75 in dealer server 70 searches Page Data 78 for a recordassociated with the URL. Once a match is found, the processor extractsthe PIIC's 82 from the record. For example, the PIIC's 82 associatedwith the foregoing URL may include the strings “R100-picture”,“R100-specifications” and “R100-wholesaleprice” if the web page isintended to show the user 60 a picture, description and wholesale priceof the R100 Radio.

[0032] Dealer server 70 transmits its Dealer ID 76 and the PIIC's 82from Page Data 78 to manufacturer server 71 via Internet 80. Based onthe Dealer ID and in accordance with instructions 84, processor 83 ofmanufacturer server 71 queries the Dealer-Product Authorization Table330 to obtain a list of those PIIC's that the particular dealer bothrequested and is authorized to receive. Using the foregoing example,dealer server 75 will send the message “Dealer A; R100-picture,R100-specifications, R100-wholesaleprice” to manufacturer server 71 whenuser 60 requests information associated with the aforementioned URL. Inresponse, the manufacture server 71 queries the Dealer-ProductAuthorization Table 330 to get a list of all records which contain“Dealer A” in the Dealer ID field 332 and any one of the requestedPIIC's in the PIIC field 331. In this example, there is a recordcontaining “Dealer A” and “R100-picture” and a record containing “DealerA” and “R100-specifications” but no record containing “Dealer A” and“R100-wholesaleprice.” Thus, the list of requested and authorized PIIC'sis limited to “R100-picture” and “R100-specifications”. Optionally, forincreased security, dealer server 70 may have also transmitted apassword to verify the authenticity of the request.

[0033] Although the dealer in the example is not informed that it wasnot entitled to wholesale price of the product, the dealer may check tosee whether it received all of the product information that itrequested. Alternatively, the manufacturer may send an error messagewhenever unauthorized PIIC's are requested.

[0034] Based on the list of requested and authorized PIIC's,manufacturer server 71 queries Product Table 320 to obtain a list ofrecords containing the actual product information. Processor 83 pullsthose records from the Product Table and extracts the informationassociated with the individual PIIC's, such as text, pictures or anyother information stored in Content Item field 322. Using the foregoingexample again, the processor will pull a bit-mapped picture of the R100radio and a textual description of its features.

[0035] Based on the pulled content, processor 83 then creates a portionof a web page that contains the requested product information. The webpage portion is a HTML-compliant document that contains both therequested information and instructions on how to display the informationon the web page. By way of the foregoing example, in response to therequest from Dealer Company A for a picture and specifications regardingthe R100 Radio, manufacturer server creates a portion of a web page thatcontains both the picture and text and directs their placement on thepage. For ease of reference, this information shall be referred to asthe Authorized Product Data. Thus, processor 83 creates the AuthorizedProduct Data for the R100 Radio by concatenating the data contained inthe Content Item field 322 of the applicable records: <center><IMG SRC =“Radio.bmp”></center> <P> </P> <P>class: radio </P> <P>name:PowerRadio</P> <P>stereo: Yes</P> <P>power: AC; 4 C Batteries</P><P>tuning: Manual</P> <P>size: 6″ × 7″ × 3″</P> <P>weight: 3 lbs</P><P>colors: black, silver, red</P> <P>other: water resistant</P>

[0036] The Authorized Product Data containing the product information isthen sent from manufacturer server 71 back to the dealer server 75 usingthe pre-stored address of the dealer. Specifically, processor 83 usesthe supplied Dealer ID to query Dealer Table 310 and obtain theelectronic address of the dealer from Dealer Address field 312. Thedealer's request is appended to the beginning of the HTML document (sothe dealer can match the response to the original request) and theentire document is then sent to the dealer. Using the above example, theforegoing HTML document with the appended information would be sent to“DealerCompanyA.com/ResponseInfo”, i.e., address designated by DealerCompany A for receiving information from manufacturer server 71.

[0037] Once the requested information is received at the dealer'sdesignated address, dealer server 70 matches the response to the requestand inserts the HTML-document into a web page to be sent to the user.First, processor 84 of dealer server 70 checks the beginning of theinformation to match it to the pending request and then removes thatportion from the Authorized Product Data. Second, the program retrievesthe Template ID 81 from Page Data 78 and uses that Template ID toretrieve the corresponding Template Document 86 from Template Data 77.The portion of the Template Document 86 that corresponds withinformation retrieved from the manufacturer is then deleted and replacedwith the HTML document sent from manufacturer server 71. This modifieddocument, which now includes information that was stored at both thedealer server and the manufacturer server, is then sent to the user 60via the Internet 80.

[0038] By way of the continuing example, the foregoing HTML string wouldreplace the “<MANUFACTURER INFORMATION>” portion of the TemplateDocument so that user 60 would receive the following HTML document:<html> <head> <title>Dealer Company A, Inc.</title> </head> <body><center>Dealer Company A</center> <center>This product is availabletoday!</center> <center><IMG SRC = “Radio.bmp”></center> <P> </P><P>class: radio </P> <P>name: PowerRadio</P> <P>stereo: Yes</P><P>power: AC; 4 C Batteries</P> <P>tuning: Manual</P> <P>size: 6″ × 7″ ×3″</P> <P>weight: 3 lbs</P> <P>colors: black, silver, red</P> <P>other:water resistant</P> </body> </html>

[0039]FIG. 4 illustrates what such a page may look like. Portion 401relates to information kept at the dealer server 75 and portion 402relates to information kept at manufacturer server 71.

[0040] In another embodiment, the requested information is notpreformatted in HTML. Rather, the dealer is provided with the choice ofhow, if at all, to use and display the information. Preferably, suchdata is sent in accordance with the requirements of Extensible MarkupLanguage (XML) or some similar syntax. An advantage of using XML is thatthe syntax of the system can be updated merely by periodically sendingXML templates to the entities that use the information. For instance,the Authorized Patent Data may be sent in XML format as follows:<R100-picture> Radio.bmp </R100-picture> <R100-specifications> class:radio name: PowerRadio stereo: Yes power: AC; 4 C Batteries tuning:Manual size: 6″ × 7″ × 3″ weight: 3 lbs colors: black, silver, redother: water resistant </R100-specifications>

[0041] Each individual item of product information is placed betweentags corresponding with the PIIC of the information. Using an XMLreader, the dealer server extracts the information and places it in theappropriate template document in the appropriate spot. For example,instead of having a single area in the template document identified as“<MANUFACTURER INFORMATION>”, there may be two separate areas forsubstitution such as “<MANUFACTURER INFORMATION PIIC=R100-picture>” and“<MANUFACTURER INFORMATION PIIC=R100-specifications>”.

[0042] The operation would be substantially identical when a userrequests similar information from dealer server 72, except that thedealer would convert the data from XML to HTML.

[0043] In yet another embodiment, whenever product information isupdated (such as by a user at a terminal with access to the data or by acomputer in response to an event), that updated information is sent tothose dealers that are authorized to receive such information.Specifically, product information which is provided to dealers is storedin Product Table 320 such that every item of information is associatedwith a particular PIIC. Moreover, the Dealer-Product Authorization Table330 preferably includes an Updates field 333, which contains a Booleanvalue stating whether or not the dealer is automatically informed ofupdates to the item of information.

[0044] Whenever the content in Product Table 320 is modified (e.g.,supplemented, deleted, changed, etc.), processor 83 of manufacturerserver 71 creates an XML document such that the document's tags relateto the PIIC and the value between the tags relates to the modifiedinformation. The processor then queries Dealer-Product AuthorizationTable 330 for all records whereby the value in the PIIC Field 331matches the value contained in the PIIC Field 321 of the modifiedproduct information in Product Table 320, and whereby the value of theUpdates field is True. Based on the Dealer ID's contained in this listof records, the Dealer Addresses 312 are extracted from Dealer Table310. The XML document containing the updates is then electronicallydistributed, such as by email, to all of the addresses in the list. Thusthe Dealer Addresses 312 also function as a list of destinations forupdated product information. The dealer can then use this information asit deems fit, including distributing it to other marketingrepresentatives. For example, if the picture of the R100 Radio wereupdated, the following XML document would be sent to every dealerauthorized to access, and automatically get updates to, a picture of theproduct: “<R100-picture>Radio2.bmp</R100-picture>”. Because updates caninclude additions, modifications and deletions, the invention provides apowerful tool for getting new product information to those interested init.

[0045] The present invention provides numerous advantages. First, itmaximizes efficiency because a single change to a product description bythe manufacturer will be immediately available any time a dealer needsto obtain the information for themselves or pass it along to a consumer.Indeed, it fosters accuracy because there is no need to transcribe thenew product information. It further promotes the efficient use ofstorage space, because all of the product information is centrallylocated rather than being redundantly stored on dealer's servers. Thus,as shown in FIG. 1, a single manufacturer server 71 can provide the samedata to multiple dealer servers 70, 72.

[0046] Moreover, the manufacturer can not only insure that its dealersare distributing up-to-date and accurate information, but also track whois distributing it and how often. This information can be helpful to themanufacturer. For example, the manufacturer may learn that one dealer'scustomers do more investigation before buying a product than anotherdealer. With this information, the manufacturer may tailor its marketingto that dealer's customers, such as adding comparative advertising.

[0047] Preferably, the dealer will send the manufacturer marketinginformation about the users that requested the product information. Anadvantage of the present invention is that the PIIC provides aconvenient mechanism for this exchange of information. The dealer server75 keeps a list of the users that accessed the information andperiodically sends, broken down by PIIC, information about the users.Alternatively, the dealer server 75 may automatically send the user'sinternet address when it requests the information associated with thePIIC's.

[0048] Thus, the PIIC may also be used as a metric for tracking how theinformation associated with the PIIC is used, accessed, frequented orthe like. Desirably, this information would include whether or not theuser purchased the product after viewing the product specifications.This sort of information would be very helpful in determining howeffective the individual PIIC items are at encouraging product sales.

[0049] In addition, if the manufacturer has information about the user,such as the user's demographic or prior purchase information, thatinformation may be used to customize the Authorized Product Data.

[0050] An additional advantage is the fact that the manufacturer cansend the product information to an address different from the address ofthe requester. For example, because some PIIC's may relate to verysensitive information, the product information is only sent to addressescontained in Dealer Address field 312 regardless of where the requestcame from. Alternatively, the databases may be modified so a dealer mayspecify different addresses for different PIIC's, or multiple addressesfor the same PIIC. Yet further, some PIIC's may be tagged as beingfreely distributable to any requester.

[0051] Still another advantage is the fact that the entire process isseamless to the end user. All of the foregoing advantages occur withoutthe knowledge of the user, thus preserving the relationship oftendeveloped between a user and particular dealer. At the same time, if theuser is simply looking for the best deal for a particular productoffered by a particular manufacturer, then the manufacturer can insurethat the user is getting consistent information about its productsregardless of the dealer.

[0052] Another advantage of the present invention is its flexibility.The foregoing embodiments are merely illustrative of one manner in whichthe invention may be implemented.

[0053] By using HTML, the advantage of the present invention is that themanufacturer has the ability to control how its product are displayedand perceived. For example, many manufacturers have brandingrequirements, whereby the manufacturer's trademark must be displayed ina certain format and distance from other items of information. Byproviding HTML documents in response to dealer requests, themanufacturer has a greater degree of control over such issues.

[0054] However, the granularity of the information can be readilychanged. Rather than sending all of the product information together inone large string, the information may also be broken down into morediscrete pieces of an XML document such as: <class>radio</class><name>PowerRadio</name> <stereo>Yes</stereo> <power>AC; 4 CBatteries</power> <tuning>Manual</tuning> <height>6″</height><width>7″</width> <depth>3″</depth> <weight>3 lbs</weight><colors>black, silver, red <other>water resistant</other>

[0055] One advantage of increasing the level of detail associated withPIIC's is that the automatic notification process immediately draws thedealer's attention to the relevant change during the automaticnotification process. Another advantage is that it provides moreinformation when tracking sales.

[0056] At the other end of the spectrum, providing an HTML documentgives the manufacturer more control and the dealer may easily implementthe invention by providing a frame in a browser for displaying the HTMLdocument rather than using a Template Document.

[0057] Thus, the present invention allows a wide spectrum of controlover how the information may be displayed. On the one hand, themanufacturer may control what information is displayed and how it looksby sending the information in an HTML-document, complete withformatting, with the intention that the document be displayed in aframe. On the other hand, the manufacturer may choose to allow thedealer to decide how to display the information by sending an XMLdocument.

[0058] Moreover, although the present invention is particularlyadvantageous for use by entities in a provider/distributor relationshipsuch as dealers and manufacturers, it may be used in other sorts ofbusiness, legal and technical relationships. Similarly, although theembodiments have primarily addressed information about products, theinvention has equal applicability to services.

[0059] Unless stated to the contrary, any use of the words such as“including,” “containing,” “comprising” and the like, means “includingwithout limitation” and shall not be construed to limit any generalstatement that it follows to the specific or similar items or mattersimmediately following it. Any use of the world “plurality” means atleast two of the referenced thing. All company and product names, aswell as URL addresses, are intended to be fictitous and used herein forpurposes of example only. Any relationship to any existing company name,product name or URL (past or future) is coincidental and not intended.

[0060] Most of the foregoing alternative embodiments are not mutuallyexclusive, but may be implemented in various combinations to achieveunique advantages. As these and other variations and combinations of thefeatures discussed above can be utilized without departing from theinvention as defined by the claims, the foregoing description of theembodiments should be taken by way of illustration rather than by way oflimitation of the invention as defined by the claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of providing product information over anetwork comprising: associating product codes with the values of acharacteristic, associating product codes with destinations on thenetwork such that a first product code is associated with a firstdestination and a second product code is associated with a differentsecond destination, the first product code and second product codefurther being associated with different characteristics of the sameproduct, storing the product codes, values, destinations andassociations, receiving a first request over the network, the requestincluding the first product code and identifying a destination, andsending the value associated with the first product code to thedestination if the stored association indicates that the destinationidentified in the request is associated with the first product code. 2.The method of claim 1 wherein said step of associating product codeswith destinations on the network includes associating an identifier of adestination with the network address of the destination, and wherein thestep of sending the value to the destination includes sending the valueto the network address of the destination.
 3. The method of claim 2wherein the request is sent from an address on the network differentfrom the address to which the value is sent.
 4. The method of claim 1wherein the second product code is also associated with the firstdestination, the request identifies the first destination and alsoincludes the second product code, and the value associated with thesecond product code is sent to the first destination with the valueassociated with the first product code.
 5. The method of claim 1 whereinthe value is sent in tagged format.
 6. The method of claim 5 wherein thetagged format is XML.
 7. The method of claim 1 wherein thecharacteristic is the product's appearance and the value is a picture ofthe product.
 8. The method of claim 1 wherein the characteristic is adescription of a feature of the product and the value is a string. 9.The method of claim 1 wherein the characteristic is the current price ofthe product and the value is a number.
 10. A method of providinginformation from a second computer in a network comprising: receiving arequest for information about the product from a first computer on thenetwork, in response to the request, sending an information code andinformation relating to the first computer to a third computer on thenetwork, the information code being associated with a characteristic ofa product, receiving, in response to the sending of the informationcode, a value of the characteristic associated with the informationcode, and sending the value to the first computer.
 11. The method ofclaim 10 wherein the value is customized based on the informationrelating to the first computer which was sent to the third computer. 12.The method of claim 11 wherein the value is also customized based oninformation relating to the first computer which was not sent with theinformation code.
 13. The method of claim 12 wherein the informationrelating to the first computer which was not sent with the informationcode comprises demographic information.
 14. The method of claim 12wherein the information relating to the first computer which was notsent with the information code comprises prior purchase information. 15.The method of claim 10 wherein the information relating to the firstcomputer relates to the user of the first computer.
 16. The method ofclaim 12 wherein the information relating to the user is the user'sInternet address.
 17. The method of claim 10 further comprising saidsecond computer sending information to said third computer indicatingwhether the user of the first computer purchased the product.
 18. Themethod of claim 10 further including retrieving additional informationin response to the request and sending the additional information withthe value to the first computer.
 19. The method of claim 18 furtherincluding: identifying a template in response to the request forinformation, the template identifying the product code and additionalinformation, creating a document based on the template and including thevalue, sending the value to the first computer by sending the document.20. The method of claim 18 wherein the additional information includesinformation relating to the formatting of the document.
 21. The methodof claim 18 wherein the additional information relates to an entityother than the entity maintaining the value of the characteristic. 22.The method of claim 18 wherein the additional information relates to theproduct and is provided by an entity other than the entity maintainingthe value of the characteristic.
 23. The method of claim 10 wherein therequest for information originates with a user, the value is determinedby a supplier of the product, and the information sent from the secondcomputer is maintained by a vendor whereby the vendor buys the productfrom the supplier and sells the product to the user.
 24. The method ofclaim 10 wherein the network is the Internet.
 25. The method of claim 24wherein the request for information about the product from a firstcomputer is a URL of a web page associated with the product.
 26. Amethod of providing product information over a network comprising:associating product codes with the values of a characteristic,associating product codes with destinations on the network such that afirst product code is associated with a first destination and a secondproduct code is associated with a different second destination, thefirst product code and second product code further being associated withdifferent characteristics of the same product, storing the productcodes, values, destinations and associations, receiving a first requestover the network, the request including the first product code andidentifying a destination, sending the value associated with the firstproduct code to the destination if the stored association indicates thatthe destination identified in the request is associated with the firstproduct code, and sending formatting information with the value.
 27. Amethod of providing product information over a network comprising:associating product codes with the values of a characteristic,associating product codes with destinations on the network, storing theproduct codes, values, destinations and associations, receiving arequest over the network, the request including the a product code andidentifying a user, and sending the value associated with the requestedproduct code to at least one of the destinations based on the request,and storing the requested product code and associated destination fortracking purposes.
 28. The method of claims 1, 10, 26 or 27 wherein theproduct is a service.
 29. A system in communication with a secondcomputer via a network comprising: data and instructions accessible tothe system, the data including records linking product codes tocharacteristics of a product, a processor for executing theinstructions, the instructions including the steps of: retrieving thevalue of a characteristic in response to a request by the secondcomputer for product information, the request including the product codeand information relating to a third computer; sending the value to thesecond computer for provision to the third computer; and storingtracking information linking the information relating to the thirdcomputer with the product code in the request.
 30. The system of claim29 wherein the information relating to the third computer relates to theuser of the third computer.
 31. he system of claim 29 wherein the valueis sent with information regarding how the value should be displayed bythe second computer to the third computer.
 32. system for providingproduct information over a network comprising: means for associatingproduct codes with the values of a characteristic, means for associatingproduct codes with destinations on the network such that a first productcode is associated with a first destination and a second product code isassociated with a different second destination, the first product codeand second product code further being associated with differentcharacteristics of the same product, means for storing the productcodes, values, destinations and associations, means for receiving afirst request over the network, the request including the first productcode and identifying a destination, and means for sending the valueassociated with the first product code to the destination if the storedassociation indicates that the destination identified in the request isassociated with the first product code.
 33. The system of claims 29 or32 wherein the product is a service.